The Development of the Copula among Moroccan Learners of English: The Lightness Of Be
Journal Title: IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science - Year 2018, Vol 23, Issue 5
Abstract
Acquiring English grammar is often treated as a direct translation process. Language transfer is a result of this translation. In foreign language learning, when learners fail to understand the structure of L2, they most likely resort to L1 to generate sentences in L2. Working on this assumption, this study aims to determine and account for the copula omission elicited from the speech errors of Moroccan learners of English. The analysis has been carried out within the framework of Error Analysis (EA) and Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH). This study also explores the sources of making this grammatical error and examines the linguistic environments where learners omit the copula be. The data collection instruments are a teachers‟ questionnaire and a spoken test. In the questionnaire, the targeted subjects are 40 Moroccan teachers of English. As for the test, the participants are 80 Moroccan 1 st year baccalaureate students of English enrolled at Ibn Abbad High School, Kenitra. The study‟s qualitative findings, first, reveal that Moroccan learners of English omit be while speaking, and more frequently in situations where Arabic does not require the use of the copula, namely the present tense, progressive aspect, and passivization. Second, the main source of this error is the negative transfer from Moroccan Arabic (MA) into English. The study ends with some pedagogical implications.
Authors and Affiliations
Dr. Ahmed Smirkou, Mohamed Smirkou
Keywords
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- EP ID EP419167
- DOI 10.9790/0837-2305096778.
- Views 44
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